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Dealing with Rejection – Part I

“Wait, what!?” cried Zachariah the Prophet. He had a wicked smirk on his face as he reread the lyrics I had slapped down. As usual, I was the joker of the bunch. “‘You said that you were into chicks, you like to carpet munch/All I really wanna do is take you out to lunch’!?”

“Well, yeah,” I laughed. “It is a song about getting rejected isn’t it?

—

“Four Hundred and Twenty Two” wasn’t exactly my crowning musical achievement by any means. It was a rip-roaring three-chord punk song that all about rejection and perseverance, which is of course the best type of topic for a high school era punk song from a trio of socially inept musician geeks. It was, however, a true story.

My freshman year of high school, I attended Boston University Academy, a school so small that its graduating class the year before was all of one person. We ate lunch using prepaid debit cards at the George Sherman Union, which was the college’s food court. The entirety of BUA’s student body, which totaled less than 70 kids, could fit in a small room reserved for us in the back of the GSU. By the middle of the first semester, most of us were sitting out in the general population.

Our conversations at lunch ranged from the mundane discussion of class to the exotic and ignorant discussions of sex.

“Is it true guys can flex their penises?” one of the girls queried.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe you asked that,” another would remark.

“Well, in my experience, I can, but it only works with a boner,” I’d say. “I mean, I can flex it a little when it’s soft, but it’s not much.”

Sometimes I felt as if the only reason I was allowed to hang out with these kids was because I wasn’t afraid to be honest, though how much I professed to know and how much I actually knew differed greatly.

It was during one of these moments of brash and unfounded confidence that I welcomed rejection with open arms

As we sat around a booth, several of my classmates and I chatted in our normal manner. It was pretty clear that we, as a group, weren’t college students, the childish faces surrounding the table indicative of our youth. As a gorgeous brunette coed walked by our table and all the boys’ heads turned, our age suddenly became the topic of the hour.

“Ha!” said Vera, a lithe Russian ballet dancer who was as brilliant as she was nimble. “You guys could never get a woman like that!”

“Probably not,” conceded Ethan, a gangly, shaggy haired blond. His nouveau moustache danced across his face like a bather tipping its toes tenderly into a hot tub. He smirked, his retort not quite done. “But we could probably do her homework and that might get us something in return!”

“None of you even have the balls to ask her out,” Liz said. We hooted and hollered, the girls covering their mouths with stunned looks of oh-no-she-didn’t on their faces while the boys jaws dropped and defensive arguments added to the din.

Even if we didn’t have the balls to ask her out, Liz had the balls to call us out on it. She was, for all intents and purposes, the it girl of our grade: blond, smart, funny, and straight forward. I even found her braces cute, but I always had a weird attraction to braces. And yes, thank god, I grew out of it.

The hollering came to a halt when Vincent, a sub-five-foot tall Asian tennis player and my best friend at school, pointed out that the co-ed was now staring at us, her lunch tray propped quizzically in her right hand. It was suddenly dead silent. No one moved.

“Well?” said the co-ed.

“Um…” stammered Ethan, searching for words that were destined never to come.

“I’m sorry,” I said in my most ready-for-prime-time voice as I got up and approached her. “My friends can be a little… rude.”

“No shit.”

She rolled her eyes and turned, walking away. Then it dawned on me. This was my chance to throw it right back at Liz. I hustled to catch up, matching her stride.

“If there’s any way I might be able to make it up to you, perhaps over dinner?”

It could have been worse. I could’ve used Superman’s line.

A snicker escaped her lips and I felt lucky it wasn’t loud enough for my classmates to hear. Her eyes ran up and down me as we walked, measuring me up. I tried to smile as alluringly as possible. Practicing this look in front of a mirror that evening, I realized I looked like an ass. And by that I mean I literally looked like a donkey.

“I’m flattered,” she said unfazed, “but you’re way too young for me. And just a tip,” she whispered to me as she leaned over, her hand brushing my shoulder and sending pubescent tingling instantly to every extremity, “don’t stare at a girl like that if you want to have a chance with her.”

She gave me a peck on the cheek and left me standing there, my heart thumping with adrenaline and shock. My grin was wider than the age gap in Harold and Maude.

I turned back to our table and saw the entire group’s eyes on me. I flushed with pride and embarrassment.

“What was that?” asked Vincent.

“I asked her out.”

“No way!” cried Vera. “That’s crazy!”

“I think the term you’re looking for is ‘ballsy,'” chimed Ethan.

“She said no,” I admitted, still smiling despite myself.

“There’s a surprise.” Though sarcasm layered Liz’s statement, I could feel respect hiding just beneath the surface.

“It seems I had the balls to ask her out. Who’s next?”

The table erupted again, laughter and cries echoing through the GSU. Little did I know what I had started.